29 Books That I Want to Get (Although I Should Probably Read the Ones I Have First)

After buying our new place back in April, I got two for my office. Problem is I own a shit ton of books and board games. Two didn’t cut it.

Then I got two more. Now I’ve got four of them. My book collection filled them up, and I didn’t have to double up.

That was two months ago.

Now my cases are once again swamped with books, doubled (sometimes tripled) up.

And yes, I suffer horribly from the the Japanese call tsundoku, or the habit of buying books without reading them.

I do read a lot of books. By my last calculation, I read somewhere around 200+ per year. I just don’t read every book I get.

To make things worse, I’ve got a stack of library books, too.

When it comes to book hoarding, I’m the fucking worst.

REGARDLESS, here’s a list of 29 more books that I want. Enjoy.

29 Books That I Want to Buy

Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss. Ooo… new Tim Ferriss. Granted, he’s been cranking them out like crazy lately and it’s probably just the B-sides to his last book Tools of Titans, but whatever. I want it.

Essays of E.B. White. I’ve really started digging on the Elements of Style guru and his works. Maybe I’ll give Charlotte’s Web a read again.

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. It’s hard to believe that I’ve sold probably 6 used copies of this book and now I want one for myself. It’s one of those art books that everyone that’s an artist is supposed to own. And while I don’t really consider myself an artist — although, I am pretty snazzy with Photoshop — it never hurts to brush up on the ol’ skill set.

Reinvent Yourself by James Altucher. Choose Yourself and Choose Yourself Guide to Wealth are freakin’ amazing. And this one has a spaceman on the cover.

Purple Cow by Seth Godin. I lent out my copy to a friend. I don’t think I’m ever going to see it again. Since it’s in my Top 15 Books, I’d kinda like it back.

Mastery by Robert Greene. I’ve told my wife that I want this. I really want this.

33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene. Ditto this one, too. I’m loving 48 Laws of Power — one of the rare books that I’ve taken my time with — so his other stuff has to be pretty good.

Titan by Ron Chernow. I’m not really obsessed with John Rockefeller or anything, but this book makes a lot of cool people’s Top 10 lists, so I should probably check it out.

Think Wrong by John Bielenberg and Mike Burn. The only thing that’s kept me back from getting this book is that it’s $27 on Amazon. For a business/marketing book? Yeesh.

Principles by Ray Dalio. I recently discovered that Tracy already bought this book for me for Christmas. I wasn’t supposed to know that. But she’s terrible at keeping secrets.

Average Is Over by Tyler Cowan. This is another book I found on Ryan Holiday’s lists. I picked it up once from the library and never had a chance to get through it. It’s another one of those books I like to read to earn myself points in online political discussions (I live a sad life).

Shoe Dog by Phil Knight. Here’s a book I read this year that I don’t actually own. It’s the story of shoe giant Nike’s origins and it’s fucking superb.

The Power Broker by Robert Caro. Another Holiday list book. I saw this at Barnes and Noble recently — the thing is a monster. As far as I can tell it’s about one of New York’s mayors. I don’t know. I want to own/read it just for bragging rights.

The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. When I first started breaking away from the 9–5 mold, this is one that a lot of entrepreneurs pointed me to.

Draft №4 by John McPhee. I’ve been on a reading-books-about-writing kick lately. Spending all my time on Medium probably has something to do it. Every time I’m in the writing section I see this book. Looks cool.

It by Stephen King. I’ve sold two first edition/first print copies of this book but I’ve never actually sat down to read the 1,000+ page monster. Evil clown? Turtle Gods? Sign me up.

Soonish by Kelly Weinersmith. Futurism books tend to come in two styles: they’re either horrible or they’re great. Hopefully, this one is the latter.

We Have No Idea by Jorge Cham. Here’s another book that I think looks cool and has a cool premise: all the shit that we don’t know about the Universe.

Homo Deus by Yuval Harari. All the cool kids read his first book, Sapiens. I want to be cool. So I need to read this one, too. Probably won’t be so bad either. I’m sure there’s lots of pictures. And it’s about the future of humanity. How cool is that?

Genome by Matt Ridley. Ridley’s another author that you’ve got to read to stay hip with the entrepreneurial reading trends. Thankfully, the other book of his that I read, The Rational Optimist, is freakin’ bad ass.

The Social Justice Warrior Handbook by Lisa de Pasquale. I’ve recently had the “honor” of working around some pretty extreme SJWs so this parody appeals. As a moderate, I’m having trouble deciding which is worse: the gun-toting xenophobes on the right or the thought police bullies on the left.

The Qur’an. I’ve been going to church. It hasn’t made me a believer (it’d literally take a miracle for that to happen), but it is interesting. I’d like to read up on the competition, though. See what they’ve got to say.